| Matsushita and Toshiba to Consolidate CRT Business 26 September, 2002
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. Osaka, Japan--Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. and Toshiba Corporation today announced that they agreed to consolidate their cathode ray tube (CRT) business into a single joint venture company. Plans call for setting a company in January 2003 to work on incorporating the new joint venture company at earliest possible date within their current fiscal year ending March 31, 2003. The joint venture will be headquartered in Osaka, with 60% owned by Matsushita and 40% by Toshiba. The business integration will involve product development, manufacturing, and sales operations, making the new company the world's third largest CRT company, based on the two companies' combined sales turnover in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2002. The new company, whose name is yet to be decided, will have some 16,000 employees worldwide. Its sales projection is approximately 270 billion yen for the fiscal year ending March 2003. Despite intense competition from other display devices such as LCDs and PDPs, the global CRT market for TV use is still expected to grow by 2 to 3 percent annually on a quantity basis, due to CRT displays' technical advantages in such areas as brightness, color reproducibility, and cost-performance, especially for digital and high resolution TVs. By making optimum use of the synergies and efficiency enhancement expected from unification, the new company aims to withstand the competition and assume a leading position in the global CRT market. The popularization of digital broadcasting will heighten the necessity to improve the image quality of display devices. The joint venture will differentiate itself through its cutting edge technology, providing high-quality images through the integration of the two companies' technologies. These include Matsushita's Super Slot Tension mask technology, which helps form uniformly high-quality images and is ideal for large-sized flat screen picture tubes for digital TV receivers, and Toshiba's Microfilter technology, which increases the brightness and contrast of the CRT. The joint venture also brings together the product development capabilities and manufacturing technologies of Matsushita and Toshiba. It will boost its competitiveness in the global CRT market by sharing and standardizing design methods and manufacturing processes. Matsushita and Toshiba plan to integrate their CRT business operations, including research and development, manufacturing, and sales. The integration will cover both companies' manufacturing operations worldwide, except for those in Japan where the parent companies will continue to run their respective factories. They include Matsushita's factories in China, the United States, Germany, and Malaysia, and Toshiba's factories in the United States, Thailand, and Indonesia. The new company will also take over as its wholly owned subsidiary MT Display Procurement Co., Ltd., a joint procurement company established with equal ownership by the two parent companies on April 15, 2002.
Media Contacts: Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. Toshiba Corporation |
 |
Information in the press releases, including product prices and specifications, content of services and contact information, is current on the date of the press announcement,but is subject to change without prior notice. |